Townhall meeting this weekend!

[Flourish]

Hey, to a lot of players, this conversation between Azungar and Pope is gonna look kinda weird. You probably don't have enough context for some of the things they're saying. I'll type up a longer post later, but for now, please understand that there's been a lot of things going on in adminchat, for a long time. This includes arguments about politics and what is okay ingame and what is not, speculation and accusations about people's political affiliations, and a lot of bad feelings. Please bear this in mind. Thank you.

Alright, here's what I wanted to say:

Spoiler!

I want to give everyone's points enough attention and actually address them, but I really can't keep up! So, I've chosen some specific ones I wanna clear up, elaborate on, or simply emphasize.

I agreed with most of Azungar's first post. Here are some of his points that I especially want to emphasize or add onto.

Just that there was and still isn't a system that allows these conflicts to be resolved in a healthy manner, rather the more stubborn party can keep on pulling shit behind the scenes for as long as they wish to. And yes, sometimes there is no way to resolve these conflicts as sometimes ideologies just clash too hard on principle level. And when that happens, you end up witnessing what is occurring right now with some of the admins leaving.

Azungar is absolutely right. From my experience, we've never really had a truly functional system. There have been lots and lots of issues over the years, and a lot of them were never really resolved. Things add up, and sometimes they spill over, and then you end up with these extremely unfortunate events, seemingly out of nowhere (at least from the perspective of your average player).

And congratulations, you have discovered the core issue. Not only have these quarrels been censored to private wizard channels which means that you REALLY needed to be in the loop even as an admin to figure this shit out, but the whole stance of Goon admins on a lot of the issues has been just a bunch of patting people on the head and wishing that things would just get better. I don't blame anyone, because I understand the desire behind everyone getting along but it's such a ridiculous pipedream when shit keeps boiling to conflict and leaks into other channels as well. It leaks into conversations about actual features, surfacing as genuine spite where genuinely decent ideas are shot down because of on-going feuds between people. I'm genuinely biased, so I won't point any fingers around, even if I personally think that it is just a very vocal minority. 

I agree with everything Azungar said here. While it sounds sort of dismissive to characterize past efforts simply as "patting people on the head", oftentimes it did feel like people weren't really acknowledging the issues we had and just simply trying to ignore them while telling us that things were fine. 

A lot of people left when Goon decided to adapt to be more politically correct. I personally feel like this is just a continuation of that story, with the people who no longer wish to see that development is wanting to bow out. It's blatantly obvious that Goon doesn't mind catering to certain groups, which is fine but should perhaps be more directly stated. I personally don't think Goon has been a politically neutral ground for a while now, with certain people choosing to treat it as a playground for their political motives instead of a community created a video game. Maybe that's just the natural development of things.

I'm not sure which specific event or set of events Azungar is referring to when he says "when Goon decided to adapt to be more politically correct", but I agree that we should be more direct about what we want here and what we don't. Being clear about our expectations, boundaries, and our visions for the game and community going forward is very important, and I think ties a lot into the previous discussion I had with FishDance about direction. One thing I want to point out, though, is that I'm pretty sure we're operating with different definitions or ideas of what a "politically neutral ground" is. But again, being more clear would help settle this issue and potential miscommunications. 

The breakdown, based on what I've heard thus far, seems to be that people got too personal with each other, expressed ideas that clashed with some deeply held beliefs and identities, felt frustrated from a perceived sense of resentment, favoritism, and/or lack of accountability, and no one addressed it until it boiled over.

Good summary!

Aside from the fact that a policy of blanket silence and "It's none of your business, it's an internal admin thing that's already being resolved" would be extremely unsatisfying and also turn off a lot of players, it would also be completely unenforceable because the admins who left the team would not be bound by that policy and would have no qualms sharing about the issues that caused them to leave from their perspective. It's better to have the town hall not just so that the players can be informed, but so each of the admins can have their say, instead of interested players only getting the story in private conversations with disgruntled ex-admins (after all, such issues seem to be what caused this mess in the first place).

Good take. 

To someone in your position, 'don't ridicule certain things' is political correctness and one of those annoying things you have to agree to so you don't get grumped at by someone with no real sense of humor. To a member of one of those aforementioned minorities, 'don't ridicule certain things' is a shield that gives them a space where they can trust they won't be belittled because of who they ARE. Make fun of someone all dang day for stupid things they do, but the minute you start ridiculing someone because of who they are, that's the point at which I'm gonna have something to say about it.  Just as nobody gets to pick their nation of origin or skin color, nobody gets to pick what sexual or gender identity they land on, or even whether or not theirs is concrete and not changing over time.  Think of that pesky 'political correctness' as the natural conclusion of the no slurs rule we instilled long ago. No Slurs Part Two: The Secret Of The Ooze.

To make it clear to the players, Pope is addressing these ideas because it's good to address them, not because these ideas are a good representation of what Azungar actually thinks. I don't believe that Azungar's idea of/issue with political correctness is "don't ridicule certain things", and from my experience, he's never ridiculed someone because of who they are. I just want to make this clear because I think this can come across as really confusing, especially to a player who's not really familiar with Azungar or what's been going on recently. 

If that's a dealbreaker for someone, if they have no interest in engaging with a community where nobody's personhood is challenged, then I wish them every happiness in finding someplace else to call home. This space will not be that home, for as long as I have anything to say about it.

Similar to what I said above, "don't ridicule certain things" or "don't challenge other people's personhoods" isn't Azungar's issue with our community or what's been happening recently, and it's absolutely not why he left. Why he left is super complicated and nuanced and a lot more related to what's been going on between admins, and if you want more information on that, you should talk to him directly.

Azungar's second post is a lot more contentious to me, but I'm going to do my best to not argue with what I disagree with, and again just clarify/elaborate/emphasize certain points. Again, we're going to address all of these things during the upcoming town hall. 

But I don't think this "pesky political correctness" is the natural conclusion of that. Or maybe I am wrong and it is, but it's not a question that neither you or I can decide for everyone who hops on our server. It is genuinely a thing that would require a server-wide vote on being accepted unless you prefer to do what was previously done, and just presume that everyone is fine with instilling political correctness within the server.

I'm not sure what specifically Azungar is referring to with "what was previously done", but I agree that we should be more in touch with our community and entire server. Even, as, like, a general thing, beyond all this discussion about politics. Did you know what approximately only 40% of players who filled out our community survey (n = 268) are on our Discord? We're missing out on a lot of voices on a day-to-day basis. 

Also, if you wish to take the responsibility of creating this wonderful space where nobody's personhood is challenged, you'll wish to take the responsibility of sowing this minefield that lays between the people who genuinely have no interest in gender/sexual orientation/politics and the people who consider that to be something so vital about them, that they just can't push it in a community that is about spacemen and farting. 

You're right that different people have different ideas and perspectives, and you're right that this is something we need to figure out.

If we want to actually respect the mental and social wellbeing of our admin team, we can't force them to bottle up their emotions and try to "settle" things internally. Especially since that tactic has already been tried and clearly hasn't worked.

That is why I cannot in good conscience support in any way, shape, or form this proposed guideline:

Under no circumstances are members of staff to communicate internal issues or secrets to the players or general public. This includes, but is not limited to: Interpersonal arguments between members of staff, opinions of specific players or groups of players held by members of staff or staff in general, planned or future game functions, or information about administration structure that has been decided will be kept quiet. The sole exception is that you can talk about secrets and other game features IF AND ONLY IF you are either the sole person who created that content, or have explicit permission from the person or people who did. You probably want to screenshot that permission in case it’s challenged!

Like we discussed in Discord, the phrasing and everything of these guidelines really needs to be worked on! In no way do we mean "okay keep everything internal, don't ever share anything". We'll definitely need to do a better job of distinguishing which internal issues are fine to communicate and which aren't.